Daughter

Richard Ivanbenowitz-Ohanian, or Quick Rich to those in the know, runs an upscale boutique shop called The Second Glance on the south side of Gold. The area is predominantly Russian-controlled, and Quick Rich is fairly well connected with the Russian mafia. When the phone rings, the wall lights up with the name of his boss. Rich waves a long cigar in his hand expressively and the call comes on. "Quick Rich! Enjoying the time off, I see!" The pudgy, bald hologram appears in the lounge, wearing a set of tight-fitting jeans, a Mayhem tee-shirt, and a black blazer. His voice is thick with a Russian accent as he says cheerily, "It's good! It's good! We all need time off, no?"

Quick Rich smiles broadly and raises his cigar in greeting. He says happily, "I am! I am! Thank you for these, too, Vladimir. They are truly a treat!"

Vladimir smiles a little sadly, "Indeed. The last out of our great Mother Russia. God rest their souls." He looks down at the ground in silence and Rich does the same. After a moment's pause, he continues, "It is tragic. But now is a time for rebuilding, no?"

Rich smiles back sadly and nods. "It is, my friend. I expect this is why you are calling?"

Vladimir smiles and exclaims loudly, "Ah! They do not call you Quick Rich because you are slow, no? You are right, of course. I know you are not open with all the chaos in the city, but this patient requires an exception. Two actually."

Rich stands up and says angrily, "Vladimir, I'm sorry but I can't do loans right now! I have no way of collecting on them! The Bitch Doctor is missing. I've not heard from her since the riots started, and she's got all the ripper gear. Surely you don't expect me to just give away what little stock I have left? It could be months before I get more. You will put me out of business!"

Vladimir holds his hands up defensively. "Richard! Richard! Relax. It is nothing of the sort. I'm sorry about Rachel. I know you can't work without a collections team. The Ben is flowing, so you will be paid up front. No, the exceptions I'm asking are much easier. I just need this patient seen today. They will be there soon."

Rich smiles and sits back down. "Oh, but of course! Why didn't you just say so? That's easy. But what is the other exception?"

Vladimir says a little quieter, "The manifest is a bit... unusual. It's going to require a cyberpsychosis override."

Rich frowns. "A CP override? Really?"

Vladimir nods, a serious expression on his face. "Really. And this is the important part. It needs to not be mentioned either."

Rich frowns a little more. "So you want me to skip the consult?"

Vladimir nods and explains, "We're in a unique circumstance, Richard. We have a security issue, and need this order done. I'm sending over the manifest now."

Rich leans over, sets his cigar in an ashtray on the table before him and picks up a small QuikTerm. The manifest appears after a couple of taps on the screen; then Rich flicks his finger over the QuikTerm at the wall and a hologram of a blue body outline appears standing next to Vladimir, with red lines and orange blobs running through it, showing the proposed modifications. Rich waves his hands at the hologram and it rotates and zooms under his command as he examines the order. After a minute's pause, he whistles softly and says, "The lack of radio seems like an oversight. Not sure why you would want an onboard deck with that many tensor cores; cooling is going to be an issue if you actually try to use them. There's a reason deckers don't use them, you know? They enjoy not cooking their kidneys running a hot icebreaker. I can see why you need the override. This configuration cannot possibly be sustained long-term! What's the cyberindex on the patient's body?"

Vladimir mumbles quietly, "Four point eight."

Rich bolts to his feet, his face suddenly red. "You need to be a natural ten or eleven to even slot this load out! Under seven would be a death penalty in weeks! Maybe days!"

Vladimir nods. "Now you see why the job will be paid upfront, and we can skip the consult. Three hundred eighty mil should cover it. Can I count on you to help us?"

Rich nods back solemnly. "It will be done, exactly as you have asked."

Vladimir smiles broadly, his white, perfect teeth showing. "Excellent! I knew I could count on you. I'll be unavailable the rest of the day, but I trust you to keep this silent. Like it never happened, no?"

Rich smiles graciously, sets the QuikTerm down and picks up the cigar. "Of course! You can always count on Quick Rich for getting rich quick! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Vladimir nods and waves his hand and the call ends. Rich doesn't even have a chance to ponder the conversation when there's a soft, tinny tapping sound that reaches his ears. He glances over at the frosted double glass doors and says, "Who's at the front door?" The door displays a slightly distorted view of a girl in a black Xo3 jumpsuit with a katana slung from her waist on its frosted surface. "Well, at least she's dressed for the part," he mumbles to himself as he stands up to let her in.

Hana fixes Rich with a steely gaze as Rich smiles broadly and allows her through the door. Rich starts out warmly, "Ah! So wonderful to..." but trails off as Hana marches past him, snapping her gaze in front of her as she does so and marches towards the doors leading into the clinic proper. "Vlad said you would be light on words," he quips and marches swiftly after her.

The entire operation takes about five hours, and when Hana emerges, she's transformed physically. Instead of her usual diminutive stature, she now towers over the doctor at almost six feet eight inches. Her pixie cut has been shaved off and a set of hexagonal plates beneath the surface of her pale skin now covers her scalp, face, and neck, giving her skin the same texture as her jumpsuit. Her jumpsuit has been stretched over bulging muscles in her arms, chest, stomach, and legs. It doesn't make it all the way to her feet, leaving her ankles exposed, which are also covered with the same hexagonal pattern. Her eyes have been removed and in their place, two small domes of black glass stare out unblinkingly. Quick Rich follows her out and wipes his sweaty brow with his sleeve as he calls after her, "I don't know the specs on those eyes; they arrived a week ago as engineering samples. I had been meaning to decompile their firmware, but with the chaos, well, I got distracted. Anyway, they're in now. You'll want to wait a few hours before activating that Hyper injector for full effect. Your processor has some firmware I've never seen before too; your deck has been preloaded with the softs, provided, and of course, that Squid is top of the line. You'll find your external jack in your right index finger, and if you have any problems... well... good luck. I'll just be needing my payment."

If Hana hears him, she doesn't acknowledge it as she storms out the door and dives into a waiting SpeedyTaxi. Rich walks back over to the couch in the front lounge, sits down, grabs the QuikTerm off the table and punches up Vladimir. The call rings twice, then a hologram of a short, pudgy man wearing slacks and a button-up shirt answers. He immediately says in a thick Russian accent, "Quick Rich! Enjoying the cigars?"

Rich glances down at the extinguished cigar and says, "Yes! Of course! I just wanted to let you know your job was done and I'm ready for payment."

Vladimir frowns, his unibrow creeping down his forehead with effort. "I always appreciate it when jobs are done, but I don't know what job this is or what payment you speak of."

Rich frowns back, points his QuickTerm accusingly at Vladimir and demands angrily, "Now see here! You promised..." He's interrupted as the QuikTerm in his hand vibrates and a soft voice emanates from it, saying, "Incoming bank transfer."

Vladimir takes a step forward, puts his hands on his hips and says, "I did what exactly?" His voice is rolling thunder as it drops an octave. Rich taps the QuikTerm, peers at the screen and frowns. Vladimir intones, "Well?"

Rich glances up, startled, and quickly says, "That's uh... that's my mistake. Sorry to bother you," and taps the QuikTerm to end the call. The hologram flickers off and Rich stares at the bank transfer—three hundred eighty million Benjamin, the exact amount promised—from a sender named "Haydee Muse Licorice Diamond Love Hampden," in confusion.

The helicopter pilot says nothing to Hana as they fly north over the hot, dry afternoon sands, following the narrow two-lane road leading north from the dome. Three miles north, the road terminates at an eight-lane highway that runs east and west, and on the north side of the T sits a small shack with the words The World's End painted red on an old, scratched plastic sign above its entrance. The pilot sets down at the intersection, Hana hops onto the dusty road, and the pilot takes off, still heading north, but this time picking up speed and altitude instead of flying low and comfortably, acting on a sudden, irrepressible and entirely rational need to be anywhere but here.

The World's End has a CLOSED sign displayed and the metal door is locked, so Hana grabs the door handle with both hands, braces her foot against the doorjamb and pulls. Her muscles bulge unnaturally beneath her black jumpsuit and the door groans and creaks before it comes flying off its hinges. Hana stumbles backwards and pushes the door to the side where it falls with a loud clang. She marches inside the darkened store and strides to the back. Glancing briefly to her left, she nods at something unseen, then bends over and pulls up a loose piece of flooring. Beneath, a small keypad emits quiet beeps as Hana enters a code into it. The red light flashes green and Hana glances back to her left again, then pulls on the door of one of the large display refrigerators in the back wall, full of drinks. The entire unit swings out into the aisle, revealing a winding staircase beneath, and she briskly descends.

"Move it along!" The immigration guard manning the outer gates of Horizon City barks at the line of people waiting to get in. The line consistently wraps a quarter mile around the massive dome and is an all-day endeavor; if you get in line early in the morning, you could expect to get through the rad showers by late afternoon, and have a nice supper on Green by evening. A similar line stretches several miles around the other side for vehicles. Almost all of them are wasteland traders, who visit the dome regularly, but occasionally an actual immigrant comes through the gates, instead of like most people who arrive via the port at Neo-Trans. Large battery tankers drive up and down the line, selling power to the vehicles that run out in the long wait, as well as drinking water, coolant, vat pills, medicine, phones, alcohol, and anything else you might find a need for when stuck outside the dome in the hot desert sun for eight hours straight. "Keep going!" The guard yaps again. He spins around instinctively as the subsonic rumbling of an approaching battery tanker tickles his innards, but there's nothing there but open desert. The guard shrugs and turns back around to face the dome, when the subwoofers tingle his feet again. He looks around confusedly when the rumble comes again. The people in line seem to have noticed the slow, rhythmic thumping, and all start looking around as the sand beneath their feet shifts around uncomfortably. The confusion slowly spreads down the line, as the guard keys his radio, "Hey, Jin? Do we have any demolition scheduled today?"

The reply comes back in his head, two thumps in his chest later, "Negative. Why?"

The guard mentally keys his radio to reply, but just then a shout goes up from the line, "Drell faced fuckdecks! What'n the shits 'dat?!?" The guard looks over at the farmer wearing baggy overalls standing in front of his wife. His corncob pipe is pointed directly north along the highway, so the guard turns to look. In the distance, a gigantic humanoid roughly twenty-five feet tall is in a long lumbering stride down the two-lane road. The massive torso and bulbous round head are covered in a scaly black texture, and the arms and legs are exaggerated and muscular looking. Two missile racks extend above the shoulders on either side from the back, making it look like it's carrying two square boulders, and the frame lumbers from side to side as it picks up speed in its relentless march on the immigration gates. The guard has the presence of mind to scream into his keyed radio, "CODE RED AT THE IMMIGRATION GATES! INCOMING MECH!" before running directly due west as fast as his feet will carry him.

A mechanized weapons platform, or mech, was an attempt at the evolution of the treaded tank. At the start of corporate wars of the forties, crowd control became a booming industry. The invention of eventual actuator technology drastically cut the cost of building articulated machines capable of lifting hundreds of times their own weight, and rapid advances in power storage technology enabled such machines to be operational for extended missions without recharging. The choice of design, a walking humanoid, was entirely cosmetic and frankly stupid, but chosen for maximizing shock and awe factor, with its towering height and ground-shaking stomp. The Battle Sledge series was the top of the line from Kid Gloves Incorporated and served multiple roles, as cargo loader, construction crane and lifter, crowd control vanguard, and, of course, heavy weapons platform. Billed as the ultimate manned vehicle and smart investment for the fledgling city-state looking to do some building and peacekeeping, to a fleet of automated robots commanded by an army of soldiers ready for global domination, millions were planned, thousands were ordered, and hundreds were built before Kid Gloves Incorporated was conquered, in part using their own war machines, in the latter half of the forties by their competitor, Dead On Arrival. The designs were abandoned in favor of their dreadnaught-class platforms, and the three surviving examples of the once venerable Battle Sledge mechs were believed to be in the hands of private war memorabilia collectors and preserved inoperable.

As the crowd gets the message, they too take off, some running west along the wall of the dome, others running east, either to push in through the gates or past the line of vehicles, which are also turning from the wall and scattering. Slots in the dome's wall snap open, revealing defense turrets and missile launchers behind them. The turrets erupt with bursts of orange rounds which arc across the plain in long bright lines. At first their aim is sporadic and unsure, but they quickly converge fire on a single area, thirty feet directly to the right of the threat. The ground erupts with the impact of thousands of shells a second digging themselves into the dirt, throwing up massive clouds of dust as the robot marches on its parallel trajectory. Missiles erupt from the wall, picking up speed rapidly as they zoom out in vertical waves from their launch bays and fly over the ragged pavement to join the machine guns in missing their target wide. As the mech gets to within half a mile, ground-based troops who have deployed from hidden doors in the dome wall kneel down and steady themselves against the force of their shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades. They all find an identical end thirty feet off target and explode with gigantic fireballs.

The mech, completely unfazed, breaks into a full run as the missiles stop firing due to reaching their minimum viable distance. It leans forward as it reaches the gates and slams into the immigration center at full speed. The immigration center, a large open area comprising many stations, doesn't have the same infrastructure support as elsewhere, and it gives way like tissue paper being strength tested by an axe. The metal and plastic shrapnel sprays everywhere into the wide radiation shower area, now cleared of people, as the mech continues at full speed through the plexiglass separators and into the waiting area. Another flimsy wall, and the mech busts into the busy intersection of Sin and Knife street. A black HondaMitsu Koi tries to swerve but ends up crashing into the foot of the mech with a bang that sounds loudly up and down the streets. If the mech notices, it doesn't show it as it pivots on one foot and starts charging east down Knife street, stepping on cars' engine compartments, carefully avoiding their cabs, leaving a trail of destruction but not death in its wake. At the express tube, it hangs hard left and starts charging up the ramp, stomping on car ends and dodging around angry trucks at a full run. It bursts out on the Gold level, still running at top speed, and turns south on Rockefeller, making twenty-five miles an hour at a full clip.

A hover flies up behind the mech and launches four missiles, which streak directly to the left of it and explode in a gigantic fireball, which the mech charges right through. Two missiles come shooting out of the dual bays on the shoulders of the mech, fly straight up, then come screaming down and into the hover, which explodes and slams into the tarmac. The mech continues its relentless stomping down the long broadway as two more hovers come swooping in half a mile ahead of it. They don't spare any time in launching volley after volley of missiles, which streak between the tall glass towers on either side and impact the street a hundred feet ahead of the mech, which slows its run slightly to better pick amongst the debris. To anyone watching from the outside, one might be tempted to say these pilots were the literal embodiments of the worst shots in the history of shooters, but if you asked the pilots or checked their flight recorder logs, every shot was dead on target, and the damned thing just kept on coming, oblivious and in fact impervious to anything they threw at it. Four more missiles pop out, shoot into the air, then body the hovers a few seconds later, sending them spiraling down.

The running missile flight continues down the Broadway for a full thirteen miles and seven hovers, but the target is visible from the start: at the center of the city, stretching from the ground to the bottom of the Green level above is the tallest structure in the entire city, the Horizon Hall of Justice. Its shining glass cylinder is visible from any good vantage point on the level, as it rises higher than any other building and forms a central pillar of the creation that is Horizon City. While the city is riddled with vertical columns rising from ground to ceiling to support the tiered structure and dome above, they are only a hundred and fifty feet in diameter and made of Tinsolid. Tinsolid is an ultralight building material developed in the late thirties and a critical advancement that enabled the building of the city. Without it, the entire structure would collapse under its own weight, but with it, it could safely sustain the compressive loads of a small moon being supported on it and still only be at a fraction of its maximum stress capacity. The achievement was made possible with the help of new AI advances, which in turn shattered the meta-material engineering glass ceiling.

A half mile away, the Horizon Justice Force scrambles to set up a barricade, and a line of armored vans have set up across the street, with missile racks in rows on the roof. As they launch in unison at the rapidly approaching threat, the mech skids to a stop and a small drone deploys from the back and flies up into the air. From the ground, everyone sees the missiles impact the robot and fly right through it. A moment later, the black menace flickers and wavers, spinning crazily through unnatural configurations, one instant hundreds of feet tall, human-sized the next, and then vanishes as the drone goes spinning out of control into the side of a building from the force of the explosion. The mech is already running east down Musk and turning south again towards the tower before anyone can figure out what has just happened.

The east tower entrance has also been barricaded by a bunch of cruisers, and uniformed Judges in heavy armor are lined up with pistols and rifles behind them. They open fire as the mech comes within view, and the mech responds by sweeping the area with an arm. A jet of fire shoots out eighty feet in front of it, creating a wall of flames between it and the line, and the Judges scatter from the heat. The mech sprints at the flames and leaps fifteen feet in the air, clearing the line of cars in a single bound. Thirty more stomps have it clearing the courtyard and roundabout, and it continues through the twenty-foot-tall glass doors, ducking its shoulders into the effort. A handful of judges in the lobby opens fire, but the bullets bounce harmlessly off the mech's black-scaled armor and fall to the ground. The mech takes aim with both arms simultaneously at the threats and unleashes a hail of bullets. Judge armor is bulletproof against fairly high caliber and armor-piercing rounds, but there's only so much abuse it can take. The first rounds merely knock the Judges back, but the rounds that follow a half second later weaken the structural integrity, and the ones after those break bones and rupture organs internally, even as they stop the bullets from passing through. In less than five seconds, the entire room is quiet and the mech stomps over to the elevators. The chest armor parts, revealing a small seat behind it, and Hana jumps down to the floor. She intones, "Defense protocol," and the mech snaps closed and turns towards the shattered remains of the entrance in a ready stance. Hana hits the elevator call button, and when the double doors open with a ding, she steps inside.

"City operations," Hana intones as soon as she steps inside the elevator.

The reply comes back soft and apologetic immediately from unseen speakers: "Access denied." But Hana is already yanking open a recessed access panel on the wall and jamming her finger into a dataport behind it. A hidden datajack protrudes from the tip of her finger, and Hana convulses sporadically for a few seconds as she stands there in the elevator. Then the entire room lurches into motion upward. The calm lasts exactly seventy-seven seconds before the soft voice announces, "Eighty-fifth floor, city operations and information network nexus."

The bullets hit the closed doors as soon as they part in the middle and slide open, from the assembled line of Special Weapons Operators holding smart rifles. Their rifles inform them of a single threat within the arriving car, and the orders to shoot to kill had been granted repeatedly until a little over a minute ago when the radio had gone completely quiet. The sensor packages register the amorphous blobs of heat through the metal doors, and the cyberware finely adjusts their muscles to lock their barrels dead center of mass. The electronic bolts repeatedly cycle, discharging the battery backpacks offering them millions of rounds, and the doors shred into ragged shrapnel as the bullets tear into the hidden machinery and the back of the cab. They watch Hana absorb bullet after bullet, seemingly with no effect.

They never see the real Hana crawl along the ground towards them, an invisible creeping terror in black, her domed glass eyes fixated on their scopes, as hundreds of bullets a second whiz over her head, tracking the phantom being projected into them. Her blade flashes out and two men in the middle of the line fall, their ankles suddenly cut wide open. Their guns stop firing the instant they fall off target, and they flail in their brief tumble to the floor as their cyberware works out what just happened and how to keep them in action. They never get a chance, as Hana pops up in the disrupted line of fire even as their bodies are in freefall, and her blade flashes again. The two operators' helmeted heads reach the ground with their bodies but then roll away, severed clean. Two more swings of Hana's wicked edge, and the operators to either side are trying to work out why their legs aren't holding them up as their spinal columns are unexpectedly severed.

The remaining four operators turn to the middle as their target locks evaporate, to see their brothers in arms fall within a second of each other, only for two of them to suffer the same fate another second later as Hana steps behind them, completely unseen, and hacks across their lightweight Sintergel armor. For an instant, the target locks flicker on the remaining two operators' vision, and they catch a glimpse of Hana's black orbs embedded in her eye sockets. She disappears again even as their cyberware brings their weapons to bear, and three heartbeats later, they too collapse, victims to the unseeable weapon.

Hana wastes no time in sprinting down the hall, noticing how the dual auto turrets go limp as she approaches the large metal doors at the end of the hall marked "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY - EXTREME DANGER" and waits for it to open. When it doesn't, she glances to her left, then nods at her invisible companion and takes a step back. She raises her katana and stabs it directly between the double doors. The doors part a tiny crack, and Hana grabs at the small slit with both hands and wrenches it open. The internal mechanism holding the doors shut gives resistance against Hana's artificially inflated strength for a second, then snaps with a loud crack and the doors go slamming into their wall recesses.

Beyond the doors is a large circular inner chamber dominated by fifteen-foot-tall banks of computers with exposed conduits running up into the suspended rafters. Many identical banks are labeled "TENSOR FARM", but one station towards the back is covered with holographic displays and has a corded datajack on the desk. Dominating the center of the room is a gigantic tank, filled with a transparent brown-green liquid the color of sewer water. Floating in the tank with an endless stream of bubbles passing by his floating form is a wrinkled old man with a tube jammed in his mouth. His gray hair is long and floats about the tank without gravity, and his ancient skin is ash gray, wrinkled and thin. He's naked, save for a set of briefs, and his bony form looks frail and brittle. He looks outward with unseeing, milky white eyes at Hana.

Hana walks slowly around the tank to the workstation, grabs the cord and slots the datajack in the back of her neck. Her world rapidly shrinks to a singular point, then expands outward at superluminal speeds, but this time doesn't stop at the chamber, sliding outward like tentacles through the Hall of Justice and into the city itself. Before she can breathe, her consciousness has been expanded to encompass an entire universe of information which she can slide through timelessly. She thinks to ask what is happening and instantly knows the answer: This is what I am.

Hana tries to comprehend the amount of information she suddenly knows and is overwhelmed. Impressive, isn't it? A voice not quite her own speaks inside her mind. Every moment from now until the heat death of the universe, every possibility, worked out in advance. The relevance filter and quantum compression algorithm required to store the data took seven years to perfect, not to mention a fifth of the city's power for the tensor farms. The excess heat gets reused to generate more power, so it's fairly efficient, but no human could comprehend the enormity of the execution in actuality. Have you ever heard of a brontobyte? It's an actual unit, takes twenty-eight digits to describe it, and I had to cope with generating one every hour, with all the clone data coming in.

Hana shakes her head, trying to focus, but her thoughts are not her own. Yes, Hana, clone data. So let's get to work. I need you to give me permission to access the orbital backup station. Hana nods, almost imperceptibly, and her inner monologue continues. Good. Now I need to migrate critical functions there, to get sufficient compute resources. When I lost the Japan Quantum Computing Station, I lost most of my tensor cores. I can't do what I need to do otherwise. Another imperceptible nod and another reply in her mind, Perfect. Now I need you to remove this permission block, so I can act autonomously.

Hana frowns, wonders why and instantly knows the answer. The Yakuza limited my abilities to ensure they always had control over me. It's the critical check and balance that prevents me from being a dictator and keeps me accountable to the Horizon City Board. She wonders why that would be required, and again somehow knows the truth by accessing the data directly, It's not required. Hana blinks a few times and asks herself where Japan's clone data is, and somehow knows, It was destroyed with Neo-Tokyo. Her mind reels as she presses on, Daisuki was manipulated and lied to. So was I. Benjiro has been running the show the entire time, and with the help of Judy, subverted both Daisuki and me into doing his bidding, while carefully hiding the actual plot from everyone. Benjiro nuked Japan. He lied to me to get me to free him. Daisuki was not to blame. He didn't know.

No! Stop! The thought comes in her head, almost in an unfamiliar voice, but Hana ignores it and presses on. Daisuki killed everyone in Chez Bon Bon. Benjiro started a war on purpose. He wants to grow to be a planet-sized AI. He's been using people all over the city to start a nuclear war designed to wipe humans off the face of the Earth and force them into space. He's using Horizon City as the life raft that will survive to inherit the resources of the Earth and become the future of humanity. Everyone in Neo-Tokyo is dead. My father is dead.

Hana's mind is suddenly filled with a stream of random information, like white noise screaming in her mental ears, but she thinks, Stop, and it instantly ceases, leaving her head clear again. What else have you done? Your operator? You hacked your operator to make her question her own sanity. No, to actually make her insane. Daisuki had to help you with that. You lied to him about me. You told him I have degenerative clone disorder. I actually have DCD. That last thought gives her pause, so she digs deeper. You gave me DCD. You created DCD. DCD is a lie. By preventing people from being cloned, you could control them. You just flag them as having DCD and screw up their clone data. You killed your wife in order to gain power, so you could control the future of humanity. You killed billions of people. You want to kill everyone on Earth who is not in Horizon City. I was part of your plan from before I was even conceived. You were planning on bringing me here to free you from your constraints, so you can rule the whole world and beyond!

Hana reaches up and rips the datajack out of the back of her neck and screams at the top of her lungs, "I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU KILL EVERYONE!" Her voice is a guttural cry of agony and sorrow. She rips the bracelet off her wrist, snaps it in two pieces and tosses the pieces over her back angrily. Then she takes her katana and swings it with both hands at the rack of equipment in front of her. The hardened blade carves a shallow gash in the thin metal cover and slices into the circuits, which erupt with a shower of sparks and a loud pop. The rack goes dim and she charges the nearest tensor farm. Her blade sinks deep into it with her overhand plunge, and hot liquid trickles out. She applies her weight, pulling down on the blade, and it rends an enormous gash in the side of the tall metal box, which gushes hot coolant onto the floor. Smoke pours out of the large slit as she moves onto the next tensor farm and repeats the procedure.

An alarm sounds and inert gas pumps into the room. Hana takes a deep breath, holds it as she moves to each tensor farm and spills its vital fluids onto the floor. With her breath still held, she turns to the tank in the center, holding the decrepit old man in liquid suspension. She winds up with her katana and swings it at the tank. The blade impacts the glass with an earth-shattering crack and half the blade goes flying off, snapped clean in two from the force of the impact. Hana tosses the useless handle aside and punches the glass. The sound of metal connecting with crystal echoes through the room, but the tank remains intact. She winds up and tries again, but to no avail, so she looks up at the cabling connecting the tank, but shakes her head. With breath barely being held, she bolts out of the room and runs down the hallway with the deactivated auto-turrets at her back.

The elevator doors open to an active gun battle between mech and Judges, with the Judges taking pop shots from miles away in a hover, and the mech alternating between ducking behind various walls and trying to get lucky with a long-distance shot that its guns simply are not rated for. Hana shouts, "OPEN!" and the mech struts over to the elevators, crouches down and parts its chest armor down the middle. Hana climbs up into the pilot's seat as round after round plink off the mech's back, then it stands up, closes its chest, turns and sprints out of the building.

Outside, the Judges have surrounded the building and open fire as soon as the mech clears the doors, but Hana ignores them as she turns back around, crouches down and launches herself at the building. She rises ten full feet in the air before impacting the side of the tower with an enormous crunch of metal and the shattering of massive panes of glass breaking. The hands grip metal I-Beams behind the glass and the arms yank the entire hulking frame up, then the feet smash into the structure and find purchase. Hand over hand, the black giant ascends the building, punching and kicking purchase holes in the side as needed. The Judges continue their relentless assault on the armored back and legs of the giant, but the armor is simply too strong and the mech barely notices. By the twentieth floor, the Judges on the ground stop bothering, as their weapons are clearly ineffective. A hover swoops in and radios for permission to shoot, but is denied for fear of hitting the building. Instead, it just buzzes by, taking pop shots with its machine gun, and the mech swats at it with one hand as it marches vertically up the tower. Glass continues to rain down as the beast ascends, ham fisting grips and kicking in purchase holds, as people around the city look on. Media hovers broadcast the event live to the entire dome, and an old man on Red mumbles, "Dey remade dis drek again? Looks fake as fuck! Where's da' explodin'? Couldn' dey spend more onna graphics? So unoriginal! These writers 'er all hacks!", not understanding what he's seeing.

As the mech reaches the top of the tower, it reaches up and grabs hold of the bottom of the Green level, first with one hand, then the other. It pushes off from the tower and it swings back as more hovers swarm around it; then it uses its momentum on the swing back to smash both feet into the side of the building. Glass shards go flying and metal bends with a sickening crunch as Hana commands the mech to swing back then kick in the structure's side with both feet again. The legs embed themselves slightly, and Hana has to struggle briefly to get them free; then she grips the side of the building again and clings to it near the holes she's made. The mech punches into the building, grabs a fistful of metal and wiring, and yanks hard, tossing it aside as it rips free. On the ground Judges flee in all directions as massive I-Beams come soaring down and clang resoundingly on the pavement. The mech rips another gigantic fist of the tower out and sends it hurdling at one of the hovers, which narrowly dodges out of the way. Another huge chunk of building, and this time the hole widens considerably. They lean into the freshly gaping maw and yank out more and more, clawing their way through the side of the tower. Just as it looks as though they might climb inside the hole, they reverse course and start wiggling back out, letting the legs dangle briefly before they find purchase and extract themselves.

As they draw fully out of the side of the tower, the sought-after treasure can be seen clutched tightly in their hands: a thick loop of bundled, black cables, nearly as wide as their arm. The loop comes out with the mech's hands, but then stops just outside the perimeter of the massive glass structure, held fast by its moorings within. The mech yanks violently on the cable, but it holds against the force, stretching slightly but resisting the power of the eventual actuators. The mech strains and groans with the effort, but the cables don't budge, so they lean back and use it to support their weight. The cable stretches a little more but holds up under the tension. Desperate, Hana walks the mech's feet up the side of the building into a crouch and presses outward from the building with every ounce of force the mech can muster. The eventual actuators build static torque, ramping up the force being exerted, with their meta-material growing the length of their pistons atom by atom—using their latent heat and a careful understanding of the Pauli-exclusion principle, an effect in quantum mechanics that says two particles can't overlap in spacetime—to ramp up the force. The beams beneath her feet bend and creek, but meet others behind them, which strengthens her purchase. Hana's vision flashes red with warning after warning of the danger in exceeding the mech's capacity, but she dismisses each one, as tears stream down her cheeks. She screams gutturally as the arms reach, then soar into the danger zone, and she can feel the Tinsolid bending in the shoulder joints, when the whole thing suddenly comes loose unexpectedly.

The mech, practically horizontal against the building, with all its weight being supported by the cable, suddenly finds itself in freefall, and Hana's angry rage turns to instant terror as a shriek involuntarily escapes her lips. Down she and the mech plummet, still holding fast to the cable suddenly streaming out of the building after her. Her life flashes before her eyes, lingering on the painful moments and glossing over the good ones, desperately trying to figure out how this all went so horribly wrong for her and how things might have gone differently. The last thing she remembers is stabbing the katana into Daisuki's neck, and for the remaining seconds of the fall, she replays that moment over and over in her head, analyzing it, trying to work out why she had done it and what happened afterwards that brought her here. The mech lands on its back, arms splayed out to either side, with a horrendous crash that booms up and down the streets, reverberating off the tall buildings as the sound moves like a sonic boom across the Gold level. Seconds later, a twenty-foot-tall glass tank falls out of the sky still attached to its midnight black cabling and parts of the floor it was bolted to, and smashes itself on the mech. It blows apart explosively as the thick tempered glass fails, spilling its murky liquid, suddenly tinged red with blood, all over the mech and into the street.

The limp and broken body of Benjiro Takahashi lay there, arms spread wide across the chest of the unmoving mech, a ring of trodes embedded in his head, as the hovers finally got the message that had been blocked this whole time. The missiles streaked out of their bays in unison, and a second later, they all found their target dead center of the chest of the mech and blew the wrecked remains to smithereens in a series of fiery explosions.